Learning About Teaching Physics

Nuggets from the education research that you can use in class tomorrowWe're getting the physics education research out of those stuffy journals and into your hands (or, rather, ears) with this little audio podcast. Co-hosted by veteran high school physics teacher Michael Fuchs and physicist and education researcher Stephanie Chasteen, each episode investigates a piece of the research literature and how it can relate to your classroom.

Help us give you what you're looking for! Please take our 5-minute survey to let us know who's listening and what you do and don't like about the podcasts. These responses will help us determine whether to seek funding to continue the series.

If interactive classrooms are the best way for students to learn, then is it bad to tell things to students? Not necessarily. In this podcast, we hear from researchers and instructors how we might prepare students to learn effectively from lecture.

Are you a visual learner or an auditory learner? I bet you can tell me which you think you are. But does it matter? In this podcast, we discuss the research on individual learning styles, and how science learning requires us to blend the visual and the verbal.

Other Resources

Are "clickers" or "personal response systems" just the latest fad in education? Or is there solid research behind their use? In this episode we share some recent studies that really highlight how clickers can be used most effectively, and how they can save the world!

Thanks to Eric Mazur of Harvard University, Jenny Knight of University of Colorado at Boulder, and Ed Prather of the University of Arizona for their participation in this podcast.

Physics is the study of nature. So, physics classes typically include demonstrations of how those laws of nature play out, often in surprising ways. But do students see what we intend them to see? In this episode, we find out what the research says about classroom demos, and how to help students get the most out of them.

Credits

Show music: "DC 3000" by the Thievery Corporation, "Watidori" by Cornelius, "Action at a Distance" by Matmos, and Mesa State by Mark Crawford. All music is licensed under the Creative Commons except for music by Mark Crawford.